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Ed pulled a stool from under the bar table and sat down. “Finn, that bloody woman’s counsel put you through a living hell for the best part of a week and you played a blinder, every single day of it. You deserve a medal, lad.” He shook his head in disgust. “If she’d have just gone ‘Guilty’ from the off…”
I didn’t want to think about it anymore. “It’s done now,” I shrugged.
“Aye, reckon it is. And more than time for the pair of you to get your life back, I think.”
I decided not to share that I’d settle for not waking up and puking with sheer dread every single morning. I picked up my whiskey. “To gettin’ our lives back. Sláinte,” I said, and Ed, Lili and I touched glasses.
“So when are you folks heading home?” Ed asked.
“Eight o’clock tonight,” Lilith said. “Gabriel’s lending us his new toy, so we get to travel by Lear jet from Newcastle straight to Alicante. No crowds, no hassle – just a three-hour hop in the privacy of our own cabin.”
“Alright for some,” Ed smiled.
“Yeah, he's a flash little git, but he’s a generous flash little git, I’ll say that for him,” I said. In truth, I was inordinately grateful to Gabe, seeing as I’d recently discovered that flying was yet another activity to add to the list of ‘Things That Scare Finn Strachan Shitless’. If it got any longer, it was going to be easier for it to read ‘Just Fucking Everything’ and be done with it. I surreptitiously patted the top pocket of my shirt and heard the reassuring crackle of a plastic strip, all ready for the trip back to Spain. For a moment I was tempted to palm a few of the tiny white capsules straight away, just out of habit. Instead, I steered my craving towards the packet of cigarettes that sat next to my glass.
Lilith
I watched Finn as he talked to Ed; saw his delicate fingers run through his dark blond hair then move to his pocket to check that his lifeline was still there, then return to the tabletop where they began to drum out his subconscious desperation. Saw the tiny muscles around his mouth begin to tighten. Once he’d begun to gnaw at the inside of his cheek, I’d had enough. “Finn, just go for a bloody cigarette.”
“Nah, I’ll wait...”
“I’ll be alright, I promise. Ed’s here, and he’s got Jay and Al as backup in case things get heavy.”
Finn gave a sheepish smile. “I know, I know. I’m being an arse...”
“You can stay in here to smoke if you want, son,” Nev called over. “It’s not like the other punters are going to complain.”
“Nah, I’ll step outside,” Finn said. I hadn’t had an asthma attack in weeks, but he wouldn’t even open the packet until he was outdoors. He turned to me. “If you’re sure?”
“Positive, Strachan. Now fuck off and smoke, will you?”
“Five minutes,” Finn said. He held up the fingers of one hand in case the maths was beyond me and headed out to the beer garden where he would manage at least three Marlboros in this self-allotted time span.
“He’s a little… weird about leaving me, at the moment,” I explained to Ed.
“Understandable. I mean, you can get yourself in bother just by going to the bathroom by yourself, if I recall.”
I rolled my eyes. “Once. I get snatched by a steroid-fuelled human gorilla once, and am I allowed to forget it?”
“Doesn’t look like it, does it?” Ed laughed. He took an appreciative mouthful of beer and wiped the foam from his lips with his thumb.
“Retirement’s suiting you,” I said.
“Bit too much, the missus reckons.” He patted a belly that had become distinctly rounded with contentment and home cooking.
I appraised him. “You’ve put on, what? Ten pounds since last August? You could lose that easily. Tell her it’s just a phase.”
“Nine and a half pounds, actually. Ish. Well, nearer the ten, but nine-something sounds better, doesn’t it? Trust you to get it right on the nose, mind you.” Ed put his pint back down on the table and turned to face me. “Now, you can tell me to bugger off, but I’ve got to ask. How’s your lad doing?”
I considered answering with a vague, ‘okay’, but there was such concern in Ed’s voice that I decided to risk the truth. “If you add the good days and the bad days together and divide by two, you probably come out with an overall average of ‘nearly functioning’. He’s even managed to maintain his temazepam dose, when I thought that coping with the last few weeks might’ve pushed it through the roof.”
“That’s not too bad, all things considered, is it?”
I shook my head. “It’s bloody amazing, all things considered.”
“But?”
“Do I need my lawyer for this?”
